Monday, September 22, 2014

The Genuine Breakfast vs The Counterfeit Breakfast.

Are
you a breakfast person? If so, what sort of breakfast do you like? I wonder how
your breakfast ideals will match up with the suggestions of M. Tarbox Colbrath,
the author of What to Get for Breakfast:
with more than one hundred different breakfasts, and full directions for each
(Boston, 1882)?

Last
week I gave you a recipe for CherryShortcake from this book. The chapter from which this recipe came is
entitled Fruit Cake Breakfasts, and
it is quite an anomaly - as you will see below, the author is clearly of the
carnivorous persuasion. In the Preface,
he or she gives a fairly lengthy biblical justification for eating the ‘wholesome’
varieties of animal flesh – while remaining uncertain and a little apologetic about
pork:

Although pork is
largely used throughout all Christendom, yet I cannot judiciously give it a place
in this breakfast directory. There will be no danger of starvation if it is
dispensed with. The world is full of good things, so we can easily repudiate
it. Just as good, and much more wholesome dishes can be gotten without it. No baked
beans, a la New England, no pork sausage. ….. for it is allowed that pork is
the most indigestible of all meats, besides being unscriptural.

After
the introductory advice, the author embarks on the menu and recipe suggestions of
his ‘Breakfast Repertory’ - with meaty enthusiasm, as you will deduce from the section
headings:

III. Beefsteak Breakfasts.

IV. Cold Beef Breakfasts.

V. Venison Breakfasts.

VI. Mutton and Lamb
Breakfasts.

VII. Veal Breakfasts.

VIII. Domestic Fowl
Breakfasts.

IX. Fish Breakfasts.

X. Egg Breakfasts.

XI. Croquette and
Sausage Breakfasts.

XII. Fruit Cake
Breakfasts.

XIII. Ancestral
Breakfasts.

There
are in fact recipes in the book for beverages, vegetables, bread, cereal, fruit
(and fruit cake,) but they appear in the menu suggestions in the place of minor
courses, or side-dishes alongside the main dish. But before I give you the
recipe of the day, I want to let the author speak to you on the importance of
the right type of breakfast.

THE
GENUINE BREAKFAST.

How pleasant those
homes where genuine breakfasts are appreciated; where cooking morality is of
importance, and the food is aesthetically prepared. Feeling assured of a
satisfying bill of fare, with what cheerfulness the family respond to the news
of the morning repast. Who can deny the comforts, luxury and moral benefit of
this meal in one's own cheerful breakfast-room, where the cutlets are sweet to
the senses, the baked potatoes dainty and mealy, the biscuits of an ethereal nature;
where the coffee is fragrant and delicate, and possessed of such charms that
spirituous beverages have no temptation; where the cream comes safely from the
cow to the pitcher; and where each dish brings health and pleasure.

Such a breakfast is
absolutely perfect, because attractive, wholesome, nutritious, simple, and easily
digested, leaving the stomach comfortable, the head so clear, the spirits so
light, and the vital forces so supplied that amiable visages, clear financiering,
speculation, and imagination are the speedy compensation. Beside, the stomach,
when in this beautiful condition, is a moral force; and if (as is sometimes
said) many of the evils of the world are traceable to bad and scanty food, with
this kind of breakfast one should not fail to be a better man or woman
throughout the day.

THE
COUNTERFEIT BREAKFAST.

A home without a good
breakfast - how shall we describe it? Instead of the sunny courtesy with which
a man comes to a faultless breakfast, he who has no assurance of a satisfying
morning repast, comes like a man who has had bad news broken to him, and most
likely with a "breach of peace" pictured on his face. Yet, if this
man had the same assurance of an attractive breakfast of which the courteous
one was confident, he might have excelled him in politeness.

Pity the sorrows of
those who are not especially favored with a genuine breakfast, that stimulates the
body, lightens the spirits, clears the thought, gives moral force, and
recompenses by generally resisting the foes of life, for he who is badly and scantily
fed in the morning has not the moral safeguard through the day of him who has
been well fed at breakfast.

When so much depends on
this meal, is it not surprising that so many treat it indifferently? A broiled
beefsteak, a digestible breakfast-cake, a dainty baked potato, a clear cup of
coffee, are especial wonders in many families, who have never dreamed that a
square and satisfying breakfast has much to do with the prosperity of humanity.
In this enlightened republic, instead of breaking fast with a plenty of simple
and nourishing food, how many begin the labors of the day with a scanty, unattractive,
and indigestible breakfast, which exhausts instead of supplying the forces!

Bacon or pork served
swimming in grease, - steak fried or broiled till the life has gone out of it,
and consequently so tough and hard that one could eat and enjoy a side of
leather about as easily, - cold potatoes warmed over in fat that suggests the
longevity of both fat and the vessel in which it was preserved, - a hastened
corn-cake so rank with soda that the stomach is made unhappy through the day, -
a choice mutton-chop transformed beyond recognition, - muffins burned to a
cinder, by forcing them with too hot an oven, - scrambled eggs, and
griddle-cakes made leathery for want of promptness, - the coffee, alas! for
that precious cup, that benefactor of mankind, so invaluable to many for its
gentle stimulating powers, and especially designed for sustenance instead of
dangerous wine, - this indispensable comfort so muddy and bitter that you
cannot recognize its first principles ; and to complete its transformation, the
milk served in an unsanitary pitcher! These are familiar breakfasts in many families.

Dangerous breakfasts
these. They do not fitly feed hunger. The hungry body vainly tries to recuperate
in its efforts to digest this wretchedly- cooked food not "convenient” for
it, so that what might have been done had the food been rightly cooked, remains
undone. Determination, application, and patience will enable one to serve a very
different morning meal, with a little earlier rising, if necessary, for a
breakfast gotten in "no time" usually drifts its own way.

As
the menu and recipe for the day, I give you the following ideas from the book.
And may the force be with you.

BREAKFAST No. 15

Oatmeal Mush

Oven-Broiled Beefsteak Parker-House Biscuit

Green Corn on the Cob.

Coffee. Ripe
Fruit.

OVEN-BROILED
BEEFSTEAK.

Try this labor-saving
experiment, and, like others, you may sanction it. Perchance, if not

apprised, you might not
suspect that your steak was not gridiron-broiled. To begin, your oven must be
very, very hot, else you will lose the juice of your steak. A moderate oven
would ruin it, for, to be in perfection, it must be quickly seared with heat.
Other principles are the same as for gridiron-broiling.

Lay your steak into a
dripping-pan large enough to hold it without condensing. Set it in a hot oven.
If thick, it will need to remain ten minutes, according to the doneness you
prefer. When done, season to taste, and serve on a hot platter.

Hello Sandra and Imagica. The author meant the sort of breakfasts that the Forefathers and early settlers would have eaten (or so he supposed) - including hominy, Johnny cakes, scrapple, rye muffins, pandowdy ....Fun, but hardly hard-core food history!Maybe I will post some of his ideas next week?